'Great British Bake Off' review: Salty cakes & chocolate monsters

Sponges, squirrel's nuts and salty cakes. The Great British Bake-Off returned this evening (August 20) and it was business as usual with disastrous sponges, choco-mania showstoppers and more innuendo than you get from being stuck in a lift for an afternoon with David Walliams, Kenneth Williams and Alan Carr.

Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood haven't let the show's phenomenal success alter their mild-mannered approach to reality TV judging. Meanwhile Mel and Sue reminded us again why the recent American version of Bake Off failed massively - because they weren't in it. Offering horrendous puns and shoulders to cry on for the blundering bakers, they're as integral to the series as flour and sugar.

Similarly, this year's bakers remain a delightful mixed bag of quirky types, rather than the usual fame-hungry wannabes we get on reality TV. There's nervous ones, confident ones, ones who are far too good at everything and you want their cakes to collapse and ones you're just willing for one single thing to go right.

With 13 bakers and three challenges, episode one went at a whirlwind pace, but it still managed to squeeze in a handful of chopped fingers (ouch!), Gaudi-inspired tower of chocolate (yum!) and a last-ditch reprieve for Ruby (hurrah!).

"I got one thing correct this weekend and that was that I was going out." Poor old Toby. When he wasn't slicing up his fingers, he was massacring his two-tired chocolate cake. But as someone who once poured a spoonful of sugar over my chips in an American diner, I can sympathize with his catastrophic salty sponge moment in the Technical Challenge.

And nobody even had the decency to lend him a comb at any stage in the competition.

We loved baby baker Ruby and we were keeping everything crossed that her chocolate ginger cake wasn't a flop, but she must only have survived by a whisker. Nervy, tearful and utterly overwhelmed in the first round, hopefully she'll be able to prove us and everyone else wrong in the rest of the competition.

And we're definitely not going to be first in line to test out her creme patissiere.

Star-baker Rob was the obvious candidate for his scientific precision and top of the class cake bake skills, while Lucy's 'Wildwood' Thyme cake and Christine's chocolate hat (!) caught our eye. However, Frances currently looks like the one to watch when it comes to grandiose baking skills.

Her majestic jam sandwich-styled sandwich cake and intricate Secret Squirrel showstopper revealed an incredible imagination and a bucket-load of confidence in only week one.

Bake Off Innuendo of the WeekToby: "Who wants to go front, who wants to go back." Mel: "I'm easy.""If my bottom's dry today, all will be right with the world."WINNER - "Keep an eye on your jugs.""I sliced my thing while I was chopping the butter.""Juggling their sponges.""Paul's expectations have risen higher than ever."